I would go to leerburg.com for protection training advice...and it is an interesting place for free articles, podcasts and streaming video on aspects of training dogs from housebreaking to protection training.

I would myself not encourage this particular breed to protection train. I might be wrong on this, but I wouldn't want to deal with the consequences if something went wrong with the dog having been bred to be so aggressive in the ring with the bulls. I love pits though and know they are big babies and wigglebuts! Robyn

I agree with Robyn--pitbulls can be wonderful dogs, but in just the genetics, their jaws are much stronger than the run of the mill dog, and could end up being a liability for you if trained certain ways.

Definitely go to a trainer for this. As a matter of fact, if you put something on command with a dog, you can control when they do it much more effectively. For instance, if you teach a dog to bark on command and they have learned that they should get a treat or praise or their favorite toy for barking, they are less likely to bark just for the fun of it.

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You've made it less appealing without the reinforcer present.

Similarly, if you've taught the dog that grabbing someone is done only on command, you actually have control over when that happens. But take him to a positive reinforcement trainer for this. You will learn all kinds of neat stuff that you can use on any other dogs that you may have in the future, also. Good Luck!

I don't believe it's necessary to "protection train" a pit, except to control when and how your pit responds. If you're going to train, though, of course you'll want to use a positive-reinforcement method.Our mixed-breed pit instinctively jumps between hubby and me even when hubby's only "play fighting" with me, lol! It's too funny!

I think that it is terrible to want to protection train any dog unless it is a police dog. I have two pit bulls and they would happily lay down there life for me or my family in a heartbeat. This breed needs training. I would just get obediance training and that is it.

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Your dog will love you and want to protect you all by itself just be a smart owner.

They already have a bad rep because of idiots who want to fight them. No owner of this breed should be careless and make it worse. Already the breed is not even allowed in some places.

I don't have a pit bull but love to have one. Their reputations are so bad that you can't live anywhere with them do to all the idiots out there don't know to raise them. 98.999999% of dogs DNA are the same. Puppies inherit about 30% of there parents traits bad or good and the rest is up to the owner. Not every pit bull can do protection training. There is a lot more to it then just taking your dogs to the trainer.

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He or she got have good prey drive and your dog must have good obedience. You can't have a dog attacking people that you have no control over. I trust a dog that been through protection training more then an average house dog cause I know that dog is not going to attack me if I didn't show him or her any danger toward them or the owner give the attack command.

Like I said not every dog can do protection training but there are things that you can do with your pit bull, weight pulling, and conformation shows. Even take them out to park and introduce them to different people, scenarios, and situations, so they know have to act right when the time is come. They are working breed you have to stimulate their minds and burn that energy, so its good for your dog and you.

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If you have a house dog, the only place that dog knows is the house and the backyard. If you have a visitor more lately that dog is going to bark viciously or jumping them. If you take that dog to a different place, out of there comfor zone (house) that dog might be scare of people or just pull you to every dogs that it see and start a fight.